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Roundup: Saudi, Kuwait stocks top Gulf region in January despite oil slump

Xinhua, January 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Stock market indexes from Kuwait to Oman performed mixed in January, with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) delivering a sluggish start into the new year.

On Thursday, all markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman, finished the last trading session of the month before the Islamic weekend which is on Friday and Saturday.

Due to a market rally in the last trading week of January, the Saudi Arabian Tadawul All-Share Index posted the biggest advance in January among all exchanges in the Gulf Arab region, gaining 6.53 percent in the first four weeks of 2015.

In contrast, the Qatar Exchange in Doha fell by 3.3 percent over the month, while the two UAE bourses in Dubai and Abu Dhabi declined by 2.70 percent and by 1.23 percent, respectively.

Arjuna Mahendran, chief investment officer for wealth management at the UAE's biggest bank Emirates NBD, said the weak performance of the Qatari stock was partially because of the 30 percent collapse in natural gas prices in December 2014.

At the Dubai market, developers in particular suffered losses such as Emaar Properties, the biggest developer in the region and builder of the world's tallest tower Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the biggest shopping center Dubai Mall.

Emaar shares tanked 7.22 percent in the last month of trading. Analysts at property consultant Jones Lang LaSalle said earlier this week that rental prices are poised to fall gradually this year.

Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, will open its market to foreign institutional investors in the first half of this year, a move which is widely expected to boost liquidity at the biggest GCC bourse in relation to market capitalization. The stock market KSE in Kuwait added 0.56 percent in January.

"Oil prices remain the key driver of sentiment in the GCC markets, and trading is expected to remain lackluster with occasional bouts of volatility in the short-term as investors react to the latest developments," said a research paper published earlier by Abu Dhabi Investment Company.

On Wednesday, rating agency Moody's said the economic growth in Abu Dhabi, home of eight percent of the world's known oil reserves, is expected to slow down this year due to the turbulence in the oil markets.

Earlier in the week, U. S. crude prices fell to a near six-year low at 44.45 U.S. dollars per barrel. Enditem